Tuesday, March 26, 2013

UPDATED: ARGUS To Feature In Arrow

Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim tweeted the above image to his followers, with the comment "Coming Soon To Arrow". Already speculation is rife about what this may mean.

A.R.G.U.S., for those of you not following the New 52 comics, is an organization funded as an off-shoot of the Department of Homeland Security. Originally founded under the command of Col. Steve Trevor, the purpose of ARGUS was to allow the United States government to offer logistical and military support to The Justice League. When the JL decided to go independent, Trevor was removed from power and replaced with Amanda Waller. At present, the two are working together to build a new Justice League of America with Trevor acting as the team's field commander.

Why is this significant? Because in the lead-up to Justice League of America, Oliver Queen was recruited by Steve Trevor to go undercover and investigate rumors of an organized body of super-villains - a Secret Society, if you will. And in addition to acting as the government's go-to person with organized superhero groups, Amanda Waller is also in charge of The Sucide Squad - a government project that puts convicted super-criminals to work on covert operations in exchange for time taken off their sentence. One of the most prominent members of the Suicide Squad is Deadshot.

See where I'm going with this?

The original acronym was Advanced Research Group Uniting Superhumans - obviously a different acronym than what we see above. So why the change? Clearly they don't want to go bringing super-powers into the reality of Arrow just yet. But having a government agency put Ollie to work would be in keeping with the theme in the current Green Arrow and Justice League comics to say nothing of the Mike Grell comics that had a hand in inspiring the current show.

So... does this mean we're going to see The Suicide Squad with some non-powered villains and maybe some other no-powered heroes? UPDATE: Marc Guggenheim contacted me on Twitter personally to make the following corrections.

1. ARGUS will be showing up during Season 1. NOT Season 2.

2. The upcoming SHIELD show has nothing to do with the decision to bring ARGUS into Arrow. "Just saw a cool opportunity and took it."

Personally, I'm relieved. Arrow is a great show as is and enough of a success on its' own terms that it doesn't need to go aping the formula of another show that hasn't even aired yet.